As you may know, we at the blog are perpetually searching
for new bands to help quench our undying thirst for good music. It is my hobby
and my passion. Actually, it would be more fitting if I said it is my
addiction; I may or may not get the shakes if I don’t listen to something new
every week. Like most druggies, my addiction has taken me to some very dark
places that I am not proud of.
I have been getting
my most recent fix by listening to 80’s Russian post-punk. Just imagine 80’s
music from the Soviet Union and you have a pretty good picture of how far I
have fallen*. But just as I reached my darkest point, a guiding light brought me
back from the brink of despair. This guiding light took the form of an upcoming
south Philly band called Starving the Tsunami, and like all guiding lights, it
rocked.
Overly dramatic introductions aside, Starving the Tsunami is
pretty awesome. Any band that continuously makes me think I am listening to
Janis Joplin is doing something
right. Tsunami’s lead singer, Teena Leeds, sounds like Janis before her voice was
put in a blender. They are not Janis Joplin though; their style is far too different.
Their style is akin to most modern rock bands, but there sound is just not
clean cut enough to be considered Indy or Alt rock. But their music is definitely
rock; I just have a hard time describing it beyond that. I guess I would call
them bohemian rock if that was a thing; passionate and intense, but sounding
like it is coming from an apartment above a coffee shop (note that I do not
consider that a bad thing).
Starving the Tsunami’s first EP, Tarot, is a very good first
work. It has some really interesting riffs and baselines that really tickle me
in the right places. Also as I have said above, their lead singer is amazing. They
also have some awesome solos, especially in my favorite track, “Army of the
Strange”. They also have one or two tempo/stylistic breakdowns that I absolutely
love. That being said, there music suffers from one fatal flaw; there songs are
too long.
Now you should note that I usually take the opposite view on
music; songs should be as long as they need to be. For heaven’s sake, “Bros” by
Panda Bear is one of my favorite songs every and it is over ten minutes long.
However, Tsunami’s songs are too long with each clocking in at over six minutes
each. The problem is that there just is not six minutes worth of music in each
track. The chorus’s repeat a few times to often at the end. Also, while I love
some of the breakdowns, sometimes they make the songs meander dangerously close
to becoming “free form jazz explorations”.
So while their music is not divine perfection (really, there
can only be one Man Man) like I implied in my introduction, it really worth a
listen. Tarot is a good first work that shows a lot of promise (and totally
worth buying at $3). I hope that Starving the Tsunami is able to get the time,
space, and money they need to put out a full length debut album. If they do, I
will be sure to let you know about it here.
Pick up Tarot here or like Starving the Tsunami's Facebook page here.
Like the blog's Facebook page here.
*In all seriousness though,
Кино́
has some pretty awesome stuff and is considered one of the most famous and
important rock bands in the USSR. Check out my current personal favorite tune “Место для шага вперед” here.
Okay, So I love this blog. I love writing about music. Unfortunately I am just too busy to put the effort that I did 6 months ago when I wrote constantly. So instead of trying to push myself to write like 1000 words every week, I will just do a paragraph or two. Also this takes less time to come up with what to say, so I will just do my new album of the week :D
Anyways, last week I picked up Graveface record's new band's, The Casket Girls's, debut album. Graveface as you might know is the personal label of Ryan Graveface of Black Moth Super Rainbow, and more importantly, BMSR's side project, the Marshmallow Ghosts. If you like crazy-weird-but-crazy-awesome indie music, then they are the label for you.
Anywho, Graveface (the man) decided to do another side project called the Casket Girls with Elisa and Phaedra Greene. According to the website, Graveface (the man) is obsessed with creating a darker version of the Shangri-Las, as evident by the Marshmallow Ghosts cover of "I can never go home" that they played at the concert Steve and I went to. That sentiment was part of what went into the MG and is definitely part of what went into the Casket Girls. Whether he succeeded or not is up to people who know the Sangri-Las better then I do. But that is irrelevant; The Casket Girls are awesome.
Why are they awesome? Well imagine the Marshmallow Ghosts with a little bit more of a upbeat pop mentality and get rid of the Halloween theme. That is fantastic because I while absolutely love the MG, I find there music is best listened to when the air gets cold, the leaves fall, and ghosts are lurking around every corner (October). The Casket Girls are a band I can get behind 365 days a year. I might not like them as much as the MG, but man do they kick some ass. Check out the song "Sleepwaking" below.
Half eerie, half beautiful, half rocking out, Graveface (the man AND the label) once again creates a perfect mixture of obtuse and upright. Whether or not you are a fan of BMSR, the MG, or indie music in general, I highly recommend at least checking out Sleepwalking. You can buy it here.
All right, I am going to have to come
clean with you… I do not know how much I will be able to blog anymore. You see,
the reason why I haven’t been blogging since my “return” is that I transferred
to MIT which is… a bit infamous for a heavy workload. To illustrate how bad
this can be, about a month ago Mark wrote a really wonderful article on MPP and
said “As anyone who knows Elliot can
tell you, playing Animal Collective will bring Elliot out of the woodwork
like…well…a hipster to a new Animal Collective album. ”. Reading
his article indeed “brought me out of
the woodwork like a hipster to a new Animal Collective album”, it
encouraged me to start writing again; I thought “I HAVE to write a follow up
article, I will start right after I finish my work!” Well… this is my follow
up… One whole month later…
So I guess I have to change the way I
work. I have still been picking up new albums every week, but am now 15 or so
albums behind. There is no way I can make all that up. In fact, there is almost
no way I can write an article every week anymore (at least not ones as long
winded and “well-written” as my previous ones). So here is the deal. I am going
to try and put at least SOMETHING up every week. The length of the post will
just proportional to how much the album inspires me to write. This will range
from long articles like today (being about Animal Collective, I have a lot to
say) to half-paragraph long reviews of albums I didn’t like (like if I ever get
around to writing about Tenacious D’s Rize of the Fenix). Either way, I hope
you enjoy reading my reviews as much as I love writing them. Ah… the elephant in the room…
Centipede Hz came out a month ago… Why now? What happened to the three weeks in
“three weeks ago”? Two reasons:
1. This is MY column dammit and I can arbitrarily
create temporal anomalies if I want to (much like I can cry on my birthday if I
want to).
2.Yesterday I played hooky from MIT to travel to
Philly and go to an AC concert with John
Let me start by saying that AC
completely blew my mind. The show was absolutely incredible. Trust me when I
say this, nothing beats Avey Tare screaming in person. The fact that that man
can do that with his voice for 2 hours a day, 4-5 days a week, for months at a
time, and NOT sound like Tom Waits (or worse, Bob Dylan) is simply incredible.
I also have a hard time believing that they actually PLAY their instruments;
guitars simply can’t (or shouldn’t) make noises like that. I will upload
pictures to the FACEBOOK soon.
Back on track: Animal Collective is by far one of my
favorite bands of all time for one HUGE reason. Every single one of their
albums (that I have) is simultaneously completely different than the others and
strangely similar. They all feel like Animal Collective, but with a different
feel. Sung Tongs is AC with an acoustic folk feel, Strawberry Jam is AC with a
kick-ass rock feel, Feels is AC with a unique feel that can only be described as
bizarrely tuned instruments, and MPP is AC with an electro-pop feel. Centipede
Hz is the new Animal Collective album, and its feel can be best described as
chaotic-analog technology.
If you happened to see my last post,
you got to see my initial reaction to the album as it streamed online for the
first time 2 weeks before the release date. This chaotic feel is apparent right
in my reactions; I had no idea what was going on for most of it. What you don’t
know was that by the time September 4th rolled around and I got my
double LP in the mail, I had already listened to the album over 15 times. I can
hear you so enthusiastically shouting “HOLY CRAP! You listened to an album 15
times before it was released?” (in my mind, all my readers are on the edge of
their seats when they read my posts). And yes, yes I did. Why? At first I just
wanted to understand it, and then soon I was trying to achieve the goal of
becoming sick of it before it even dropped. And well… I failed; I am still not
sick of the album.
To be fair it isn’t my fault; the
album is absolutely incredible. Something about it just prevents me from
getting sick of it. Maybe it is the fairly consistent quality of the tracks.
Some albums have sections that kinda drag on and wear on the listener. Maybe it
is the fact that my favorite tracks, “Moonjock”, “Applesauce”, “Monkey Riches”,
and “Amanita” are respectively tracks 1, 4, 8, and 11. That is a pretty perfect
distribution over the course of the album. I never really have to wait for the
“good part”.
Maybe it is the fact that the album
flows together super well. The whole concept that Animal Collective was going
for was a radio transmission with music going in and out as it overlapped with
static and each other. This means that every song has a really interesting
“mini-song” at the beginning and end that serve as transitions between tracks.
This makes the individual tracks kind of confusing to listen to, but also makes
the album feel really complete. In fact, I know this album so well that I could
tell John what track was coming in 45 seconds based only on the type of static
that they were playing on stage.
But probably the most likely reason is
that CH is just a good collection of songs. I named my favorites above, but
every track is really top notch (with the exception of “Rosie Oh”, which I just
can’t seem to get behind). “Moonjock” serves as a thumping head banging intro
that starts with “This is the new Centipede Hz” and ends with typical AC
insanity. “Today’s Supernatural” is the crazy un-hinged single that is terribly
fun live (“Letletletletletletletletletlet GO!”). “Applesauce” is probably the
masterpiece of the album with its glorious vocal patterns and drums. “Wide
Eyed” is the first Animal Collective song written and sung by Deakin and let me
tell you, it is a treat.
On the second half we have “New Town
Burnout”. This song is clearly Panda Bear’s baby; the fact that it was
originally written for his solo work is obvious, yet he managed to work it to
feels like an AC song and a good one at that. “Monkey Riches” flows over you
like the Ocean on a rocky cove. I didn’t make up that image, a video of waves
crashing on rocks was paired with it in the live stream and the image is just
too perfect not to mention. The opening drums in “Mercury Man” are simply
fantastic as is the drums on the whole song, hell the whole album (John would
be mad at me if I didn’t mention the fact that Panda Bear plays drums this time
around and that his set uses bongos in lieu of toms). “Amanita” is a fantastic
end to the album; it matches the grandeur of the intro “Moonjock” and then
kicks it up a notch, an ending reminiscent of Strawberry Jam’s “Derek” and
MPP’s “Brother Sport”.
Now that I have talked for a great
deal about the successes of the album, I need to bring up its failings. The
first complaint that I (and a lot of people have) is evident in my initial
reaction, it is dense. While this is typical of AC, CH is particularly hard to
understand and parse. In fact, I do NOT recommend listening to it on ear buds.
It needs nice headphones or speakers; it NEEDS some space between you and the
music. The other “problem” with the album is kinda hilarious given how much I
have complimented the album so far; it is simply not that good of an album for
Animal Collective.
Yeah, you read that right, CH is not
that good of an AC album. I just spent 1000 words drenching it in praise just
to conclude it’s not good… But that has less to do with CH as it has to do with
AC. For heaven’s sake, when you’re last 4 albums have been MPP, Strawberry Jam,
Feels, and Sung Tongs, or as I like to call them, FOUR OF THE GREATEST ALBUMS
OF ALL TIME, anything less than that level of brilliance appears bad. And well, it’s not on that level. Something
about it is missing.
I feel that Today’s Supernatural is a huge
part of the problem. Each AC album always has a “big song” that kind of defines
the feel of the album. For me it is “Who Can Win a Rabbit” off Sung Tongs, “Did
You See the Words” off Feels, “Peacebone” off Strawberry Jam, and “My Girls”
off MPP. “Today’s Supernatural” just
really doesn’t hold any water to those songs, it is definitely weaker. And
though AC is definitely an album oriented band, without that big hit it just
doesn’t feel like as strong of an album.
Another thing that a lot of people don’t
like is what I started this section with, the general feel of the album. To
some it feels over produced, to others it feels too chaotic. I actually really
like the feel of CH, in fact I would rate it over Feels, Sung Tongs, and maybe MPP
for that exact reason. This is just a part of the AC fan base; there is no
agreement over which AC album is best (John loves Feels and MPP). On average however,
CH is below the big 4.
But really, if CH was made by almost
any other band it would be the gem of their career. The album is stunning and
has some undeniably great moments. And well, even if you’re a jaded lover of
everything pre-MPP (commonly considered their “pop album” if AC could even have
one), you should find comfort in knowing one thing that I believe with all my
heart. Centipede Hz is not a sign of decline, AC is still on a roll, and the
next album will have a completely different feel and be completely awesome. Who
knows, maybe they will adapt this new “dub step” trend I have been hearing so
much about.
Sorry, there isn’t any time this week for
an overly-long-winded-yet-hilarious-and-insightful-anecdote/discussion to lead
into my review. I got way too much to say about this album and not nearly
enough time to say it. So, let’s get straight to the review. Also, as usual,
sorry I am a week late.
Let me preface this review by stating,
I know almost nothing about rap. As I have stated many times before, I used to
hate rap. I wouldn’t have called it the worst genre of music, but that is
because I wouldn’t call it music. A catchphrase of mine was “you can’t spell
crap without rap”; apparently I thought I was clever in addition to being
intolerant. My hatred of rap was insufferable.
Then in early January, John put on
Eminem’s Marshall Mathers LP. Because I respect John a great deal I actually
listened to the album instead of my usual reaction, throwing a fit until the
music was changed. I was taken back; I actually liked it. My eyes were opened
and I realized that rap is a perfectly respectable genre.
The Marshall Mathers LP single handedly
converted me from one of rap’s most staunch and bitter opponents into a fan of
it. It is important to note that I do not just like the album. If I had just
liked the album I could have called it an exception and a guilty pleasure and
continued to hate on rap. No, The Marshall Mathers LP converted me to a full on
fan of rap music in general. People
don’t change their minds like that very often. Yes, the album is that good.
The Marshall Mathers LP is a
masterpiece. I don’t have to know anything about rap to say it is one of the
best rap albums of all time, seeing as it is the most critically acclaimed and financially
successful album of one of the most critically acclaimed and financially successful
rappers of all time. The album is proof that art and popularity need not be
mutually exclusive.
So what makes the Marshall Mathers LP
so good? It has this texture to it that is unlike anything I have heard before. The album is incredibly complex and
contradictory. It is simultaneously personal and fictional, hilarious and horrifying,
poetic and crude, defensive and self-deprecating. The album is bursting with
emotions, which are down-right terrifying at times. More importantly, Eminem
plays with words in a way that at times is simply breathtaking. In short, The
Marshal Mathers LP grabs you right at the start and doesn’t let you go until it
is over.
Eminem’s second major label record, The
Marshall Mathers LP marks a great shift in subject matter from its predecessor,
The Slim Shady LP. Eminem touches on
this shift with the line “they said I can’t rap about bein broke no more, they aint
say I can’t rap about coke no more”; the main theme of the Marshall Mathers LP
is dealing with family, drugs, and success whereas his previous album was
centered more about being poor. However the real shift is how much more
personal Eminem is on the MMLP is versus the SSLP.
Like many rappers Eminem created an
alter-ego, the infamous Slim Shady, as an exaggerated version of himself. Slim
is incredibly violent, explicit, and deranged. The Slim Shady LP almost
exclusively features Slim, whereas the MMLP uses him much more sparingly. By
using less Slim, Eminem balances the overly elaborate fiction of Slim with more
subtly reality of the real him. Songs mix honest feelings and thoughts with
fictionalized exaggerations of reality. The result is an eerie mixture where it
is hard to determine what is real and what is fiction. In Who Knew (below)Eminem comments on hypocritical parents who blame him for youth
violence in the same breath as graphically threatening to kill them. He
purposely makes himself into the world’s most unreliable narrator so he can
create and maintain paradoxes without disrupting the tone of the album.
Speaking of paradoxes, the MMLP is one
massive paradox. It is simultaneously one of the funniest and most terrifying
albums I have ever heard. Jokes range from crude, “So I can sit next to Carson
Daly and Fred Durst and hear them argue over who she gave head to first”, to
offensive, “Slim for pete’s sakes put down Christopher Reeve’s legs!”, to
ironic “this music is for the kids!”, to disturbing (all of Ken Kenneth). Some
jokes are a bit cleverer. In Remember Me?
he promises not to say “fuckin” for six minutes, only to say “fuck that” a
minute later. Yet he didn’t say “fuckin” and doesn’t until after I’m Back, over six minutes later. If you
take it literally, he fulfills his promise, a fact that makes me laugh every
time I listen the album.
Yet at the same time the album is
horrifying; he frequently talks about beating women, spews homophobic lines,
and describes graphically killing people. Not to mention Stan (below) and Kim, two songs
that are probably heavier than every Goth and Emo song combined. Kim in particular is the scariest song I
have ever heard in my entire life; it is so complex that I will have to save my
discussion of it to an Eccentricity someday.
The whole album is filled with emotion.
Sure it might be almost exclusively anger, but emotions are emotions. Almost
every track on the album feels like Eminem poured a bit of himself into it. This
emotionality adds to the weight of his words. Everything that he says, be it
joke, truth, falsity, or explicative, feels like it matters. It allows Eminem
to create lines that feel incredibly raw and intense.
Yet Eminem doesn’t let it the
emotionality of the MMLP take control, he uses Slim to hide it in the midst of
reality versus fiction. The album is not weighed down, it remains in a haze
between heavy and raw and light and trivial. This balance allows him to create
tension and release it. He can say something serious and then undercut it in
the very same line.
That all being said, the best lesson
the MMLP taught me about rap is that what you say does not matter nearly as
much as how you say it. A rap about a baloney sandwich could be the best rap
ever if it was (absurdly) well crafted. This is where Eminem truly shines. The excellence
of his meaning is magnified a million time over by his shear rap talent. He is absolutely
incredible; he manipulates words in ways that load my brain with explosives and
delivers them in a way that lights the fuse.
Eminem uses every rhyming trick in the
book and then some. He is like Shakespeare combined with Dr. Seuss and a liter
of grain alcohol. He is able to pack about a million words into one second and
then slow down to utter the last couple syllables to finish the line off. He
varies his rhyme throughout each song to create some really memorable lines. My
personal favorites are both completely frivolous. One line is in Who Knew, “Fuck shit ass bitch cunt, shooby-de-doo-wop,
skibbedy-be-bop, a-Christopher Reeves, Sonny Bono, skis horses and hittin some
trees.” The other is found in Kill You,
“I invented violence, yu vile venomous volatile bitches vain Nicadin, vrinnn,
Vrinnn, VRINNN!!! (chainsaw sounds)”. Neither line really means anything, but
my god are they bad-ass. Surely this is proof that rap, even if it is about
hoes, rims, and blunts, can be a work of art.
The end result of all of these points
is an album that is almost impossible to comprehend. What is real and what isn’t?
Which lines does he actually mean and which are lies? I don’t think you can
really tell what Eminem thinks from listen to this album; you would have to
know him in person. I do not have the luxury of knowing Eminem, so I am left
guessing like everyone else. The thing is though; the opacity of the MMLP is a
great part of its appeal. In short, the complexity of the album makes it intriguing
and engaging in a way that most albums aren’t.
In trying to discern his music, People
have often claimed that Eminem advocates violence, homophobia, and misogyny.
These claims aren’t unfounded; almost every song has at least one line that is
insulting to homosexuals, involves beating women, or discusses murder. These lines
can get so bad that even I, someone who has a very dark sense of humor, have
trouble swallowing it. So I understand the controversy behind Eminem. However,
as Robert Everett-Green wrote,
"Being offensive is Eminem's job description.” A lot of what Eminem
says it to provoke a reaction, hence why he is labeled as a horrorcore rapper.
When you listen to the MMLP you have to know how to distinguish between what
might actually be real and what is just spitfire. This is something that
children are unable to do, most take everything at face value. It is my strong
opinion that Eminem is not a villain; he is not an awful person trying to
corrupt people. However, impressionable people who can’t easily distinguish reality
versus exaggeration (read: children) should NOT be allowed to listen to Eminem.
That is
to be said I do have some complaints with the album. For one, he could tone
down the three things I described a bit. I know that is not the point (seeing
as I just argued against him toning it down), but that doesn’t mean that I like
it. Another thing that bothers me is Eminem’s constant reliance on pop-culture
references. This album in forty years will be worse than it is now simply
because no one will know who Brittney Spears, ’N Sync, or Fred Durst is like
people who were alive in 2001 (I actually had to look up who Fred Durst is). All
of the lines where he talks about how boy bands suck will be meaningless when
people don’t understand the context. And unfortunately, Eminem raps about how
they suck a lot.
I am glad
I gave the Marshal Mathers LP a chance. Not only have I discovered another
great piece of work, but it has opened my eyes to another world of music. I now
want to check out some Tupac, Biggie Smalls, and more. I never thought I would
ever say that sentence, let alone mean it. I want to see what else rap has in
store for me. And I owe all of this thanks to that firebrand white rapper out
of Detroit. I wonder what he would say if he ever read this. I like to think that
he would laugh and then curse me out.
Before I start, I wanted to give a quick note. Technically
Tune-Yards is stylized tUnE-yArDs, Bird-Brains is stylized BiRd-BrAiNs, and
Whokill is stylized W H O K I L L, but if I write them that way every time, my
word-processor is going to become sentient and murder me. Also, as usual I am
sorry I was a week late, I suck (you just get to enjoy two this week :D ).
This Saturday, several members of the blog (I think everyone
except for Eric) are going to the Root’s Picnic at Penn’s Landing in Philly. To
say I am excited is an understatement. Not only is James Murphy (of LCD
Soundsystem) doing a DJ set, but St. Vincent and Tune-Yards are also performing
on top of many other amazing bands. Now, we at the blog have gone to a heck of
a lot of concerts this past year. Every time we debate which concert was best,
Tune-Yards and St. Vincent are universally agreed to be the top two, with
former barely edging out the later (Man Man is disqualified from the debate
because I become violent if anyone claims that either concert wasn’t the best
concert of all time).
I unfortunately missed the Tune-Yards concert, yet any long time reader
(I.E. no one except for Eric) will know that I saw St. Vincent and loved the
crap out of that show. Needless to say, I am excited to see Tune-Yards seeing
as the rest of the blog claims that they are better. So you can imagine how
excited I am for Saturday.
So what made Tune-Yards a better concert than St. Vincent? Both
are solo projects by strong female singers, Merrill Garbus and Anne Clark
respectively, so they must sound exactly the same. Ah, but how wrong you are
you ignorant music fan! Not all female solo acts sound like the homogenous mass
I like to call Lady Katie Clarkson.
According to my
co-bloggers, Tune-Yards was simply more fun than St. Vincent. The concert was
more like a party than anything else; people just started dancing like mad.
Whole sections of the audience jumped up on stage with the band and just
started dancing with them. They weren’t thrown off the stage, Tune-Yards just
started dancing with them while continuing to play. According to Steve, St.
Vincent might have been a better performance, but the Tune-Yards show was one
of a kind.
I don’t need to know my friends as well I do to trust their take on
Tune-Yards, I can tell from her music. Whokill is one of the best albums of
last year. Not only is it amazing artistically, it just makes you want to get
up and dance. It has this light-hearted joy to it that makes it fun to listen
to. I can only imagine how crazy it must be to listen to live. I doubt that
Saturday will be anything like the concert I described above because it is
going to be in a festival setting, but I am sure that I am going to have a heck
of a lot of fun.
Thinking about Tune-Yards music this week made me wonder why her
music is so fun. There are so many different emotions that music makes people
feel, but fun is rarely one of them. Upbeat, kick-ass, pumped, happy, ready to
party, and relaxed for sure, but fun? I don’t know how but they do it but even
her mellow songs have a playful quality to them.
I think Tune-Yards’ music is fun because it feels like kids music
made for adults. It has a youthful energy and dynamic to it that is akin to
music in kid’s movies and TV shows, yet it has the complexity and depth of more
mature music. I might be completely full of crap, but I feel like it bridges
the gap between the playful energy of a child’s imagination and seriousness of
the adult world. In short, Tune-Yards is music for your inner child.
Connecting childhood to Tune-Yards is not completely unfounded.
Both of her albums, Whokill and Birdbrains, feature samples of children. It is
important to note that these are not choirs, or focused lines from children
like most songs, but straight up kids talking. Garbus also does a lot of work
to support youth programs in the arts. Both of her music videosfeature a whole bunch of kids from one
of said programs. The videos are just a bunch of kids and Garbus up to crazy
antics, dancing around and making faces. When kids aren’t on screen, the adults
on screen are acting like kids. If those videos aren’t proof that Tune-Yards
loves kids I don’t know what is. Check out the video for My Country below.
Somehow Garbus is somehow able to capture the antics of childhood in
her music. Is it is the high tempo and strong drumming? Maybe it is the way she
sings, an intricate mixture of softly serenading, rapidly chirping, and
powerfully bellowing? Or perhaps it is the energetic guitar and ukulele riffs
that repeat over and over? I really don’t know; she really doesn’t do any
specific techniques that I haven’t heard before. What she does do is put it
together in a way that creates a really unique sound that makes me yearn for
recess.
I picked up Bird-Brains for the same reason that I picked up St.
Vincent’s Marry Me; I wanted to check out the debut album of an artist I love.
The thing with picking up a debut album after listening to an artist’s later
work is that you will inevitably compare it to their later stuff. While
comparing an artist’s varying albums is usually natural, it is unfair in this
context. I listened to Bird-brains wanting it to be just like Whokill, just
like I did with Marry Me and Strange Mercy. I originally didn’t like it because
it wasn’t quite as strong of an album as Whokill, one of the best albums of
last year. However, I forced myself to try to appreciate it without considering
Whokill and grew to love it.
Bird-Brains is a really interesting album. It might be the most
lo-fi album I have ever listened to given that it was recorded on a recycled
cassette tape using a dictation machine without a bass guitar. Given its
limitations, the album is extremely impressive. Besides the obvious poor sound quality,
something that is part of the album’s charm, it is impossible to tell that it
is just Garbus and not a full band. It is busting with musical ideas. It so desperately
wants to be more than it is but cannot manage it with the equipment that it had
to work with. It literally sounds like the cassette is filled to the brim, it
cannot physically handle any more musicality and artistry. Switching between
the two albums I just can’t help but feel like Whokill is simply Bird-Brains
freed from its shackles.
At the same time however, Bird-Brains is not nearly as good as
Whokill, even considering the limitations. Yet, that is only natural given that
the former is a debut album and the latter is almost a masterpiece. Bird-Brains
lacks a bit of the sophistication and artistry of its successor. However, the
two albums are actually remarkably similar. The energy and style of Whokill is
pervasive throughout Bird-Brains, all that was needed was a bit of time to
mature. Unlike St. Vincent on Marry Me, Tune-Yards is not trying to find her
sound, rather execute it.
Like Whokill, Bird-Brains consists of one amazing track after
another. every song on the album is excellent. It never relents, never sags. I
am a huge fan of Lions; the drum beat
is so simple yet really drives the song. Also it has the line “While my brother
and all his friends whip out their tiny teenage cocks” which is absolutely fantastic
(and kind of creepy). John is a huge fan of Hatari
which has some awesome bellowing and a really wonderful end section. News,Sunlight, and Jumping Jack,
are all bursting with energy and make me want to dance. However, the best song
on the album is definitely Fiya, seen
below. Fiya has everything I could
want in a Tune-Yards song, it starts off soft and peaceful and builds into a
massive song that makes my inner child boogie. The drum beat is huge and
wonderful and the riffs are to die for; the song is really fantastic.
The one exception I have when I claim that every track is amazing is
its lead track, For You. I admit that
I am not a huge fan of For You simply
because it features a long sample of Garbus and a little boy AFTER the song. I
know it is picky but it would have been a great opener it if the two were
reversed. These types of decisions really bother me on some tracks; I hate the fact
that Neon Bible ends with My Body is a
Cage and not Antichrist Television
Blues. But that is just me picking at strings.
If you haven’t heard of Tune-Yards before but liked either of the
above songs, you should definitely grab Whokill because that album is really fantastic.
If you are familiar with Whokill, then I can’t recommend Bird-Brains enough.
Once you get over the extreme lo-fi sound, it is a really great album. That
being said, if lo-fi is not your jam then Bird-Brains is not for you. Either way listen to tUnE - yArDs and let your inner child out for some fresh air.
Quick, name the sources that influenced your taste in music the
most. I am not talking bands or albums, I am talking who or what introduced you
to them. Did you say the SSX or Tony Hawk game series? No? Well in that case
you are either too old/young to know what I am talking about or you failed at
having a childhood. Those games had a profound effect on my relationship with
music today. Since music is one of the main passions in my life, I owe them and
similar sources a great deal of thanks.
The seeds of my music obsession were sown throughout my childhood.
My mom had the radio tuned to a classic rock station every time we got in the
car. Through the radio and my mom, I gained a deep back knowledge of all
classic rock. I couldn’t tell you who sang what; I thought Led Zeppelin was a
person for years. But you could play almost any song from before I was born and
I would not only know it, but know half the lyrics. I had the knowledge, but I
had yet to get the music bug.
In sixth grade, I was on a ski trip with my school. During the
long ride, my classmate John Livecchi played Stairway for Heaven for me on his iPod. I knew the song, but I had
never actually listened to what was going on, up till that point I had only, as
I like to say, “consumed” music. My mind was completely blown. I went back home
and started listening to everything I could get my hands on. I suddenly
realized that all they were so much more than a just catchy chorus, and more
importantly, that there were things called bands with their own distinct style
(I was an idiot). Suddenly my world was filled with Queen, Pink Floyd, Zeppelin,
and the Beatles. I got my first iPod and I was hooked.
Yet falling in love with classic rock was also a curse. Like many
die hard classic rock fans, my mind closed down. I refused to accept or even
listen to any other genres or bands. Rap was unmusical garbage that liked to
rip off classic rock riffs, electronic music was the same except with more
beeps and bloops, pop music was all Britney Spears, and metal was just people
screaming. By not opening up to new bands, my taste in music stagnated.
Fortunately I encountered Tony Hawk/SSX before I completed my
wall. The games forced me to listen to music that I normally wouldn’t. I was
introduced to punk via the Ramones, alt-rock via Queens of the Stone Age, metal
via Metallica, and most importantly, electronic music via Fatboy Slim. I made
up excuses as to why I liked these songs despite their obviously inferior
nature. I labeled them as “guilty plessures” and continued to isolate myself.
But it was too late, I had secretly fallen in love with this different music.
This love would slowly grow and eat into my brain until it tore down the wall (see
what I did there).
I said Fatboy Slim was the most important because I loved him the
most. From the first time I heard Don’t
Let the Man Get You Down on SSX3, I haven’t been able to view electronic
music the same way. The way it sampled Signs
by the Five Man Electrical Band was perfect for a purist like me. It kept the
feel of the original song, including the fuzz of a record player. Sure it
repeated the same line over and over again, but the song never got old. The beats
were so clever, the instrumentation was fantastic, and the variations kept the
song engaging without alienating my anti-electronic mindset. The song got me to
buy a couple more Fatboy songs, The Rockafeller
Skank, Weapon of Choice, Wonderful Night, Praise You, and Right here,
Right Now. Fatboy Slim opened my eyes to electronic music, though it would
take years until I readily accepted it.
It wasn’t until I came to Drexel and met my fellow bloggers Steve
and John that my world was blown apart. The two of them introduced me to so
many fantastic artists in so many different genres. Before I knew it I couldn’t
get enough and became the music explorer I am today. I owe this change to them
and to Fatboy Slim; he was able to put his foot in the door and let them it.
Three and a half weeks ago I was celebrating Record Store Day with
Steve and John at Princeton Record Exchange. I picked a couple exclusive
singles and then wandered over to the discount CD rack. I was ecstatic to find
a copy of Fatboy Slim’s Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars for only two
dollars. I was already a huge fan of You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby and HBGS’s
hit single Weapon of Choice, I was
excited to get the complete set.
If the album title is supposed to be a euphemism like the album art suggests, then that girl has REALLY long legs...
I should state for the record that I haven’t listened to entirety of
Fatboy’s catalog, but I have at least a single from his first four albums (of
five). So I feel fairly safe in saying that his sound and style hasn’t really
changed much at all. I have said in the past that this can be a kiss of death
for a band, that evolving is necessary to avoid stagnation. However, there are
always exceptions to this rule and Fatboy is one of them. Fatboy’s sound is so distinct,
nothing is really like it. There are other Big Beat acts, but no one sounds
quiet like Fatboy. Even though he works with really diverse samples, I can
identify if a song is by Fatboy song even if I have never heard it before. His
style is so unique that he can get away with not changing it; he doesn’t need
to.
So what exactly is Fatboy’s style? It is hard to put to words. I
can list each individual component that comprises the sound, but it is the way
that they are out together that makes it distinctly Fatboy. Interesting vocals
are looped over a fast paced beats with various hooks fighting for attention
with electronic noise on top. This sum of parts is prone to looping, breaking,
and scratching. Fatboy mixes each track to mirror a genre, be it disco, dub, or
funk. It is a kind of magical sound that is magnificently funky and addictive. Check
out the music video for the Weapon of
Choice, the best song on the album. I want to point out that this is the GREATEST
MUSIC VIDEO OF ALL TIME despite the fact that it is of the shorter radio edit. (If you disagree, post a message on the Facebook and we
can set up a meeting time for me to kick your ass).
The thing with Fatboy’s style is that it is very track oriented.
Thus his albums feel more like a collection of tracks more than a complete
work. Halfway Between the Gutter and the Star is a great example of this. The
songs do not feel like they really belong together. There are some exceptions
of course. Talking Bout my Baby and Song for Shelter are really nice
bookends on the album, with the later containing a reprise of the former. The
transition from Retox to Weapon of Choice is fantastic. Yet despite
these examples I feel like I could trade out almost any other song, heck even
half the songs, for a song from a different album and not notice the
difference. I have said in the past that I am not a huge fan of albums of this
sort, but that does not mean it is inherently bad. What it does mean is that it
should be judged by the merits of each individual song and not the album as a
whole.
HBGS didn’t really do anything for me on my first listen. I really
enjoyed some tracks, Bird of Prey, Yo Mama,
Drop the Hate, and Weapon of Choice
of course. Yet the rest of the tracks’ vocal loops were not particularly
interesting. Seeing as Fatboy’s style is centered so much around these loops,
an uninteresting loop kills the magic of the song. However, as I listened to it
some more my mind began to change. I noticed things I hadn’t on the first go.
Songs became catchier the more I listened to them. Talking Bout my Baby, Mad
Flava, and Retox really grew on
me. I am really glad that I gave myself three weeks to check out this album and
not one.
That being said, there was a limit to how much it grew on me. Some
tracks just aren’t that enjoyable. Despite the greatness of its ending, most of
Song for Shelter just isn’t
particularly interesting. I think that Star
69 vocal loop is dull. I mean come on, “They know what is what, but they
don’t know what is what, they just strut, what the fuck”? It tries to be
interestingly cryptic and fails. Love
Life just doesn’t do anything for me. I can’t decide how I feel about Demons. Sometimes it engages and entertains
me, other times it can’t hold my attention.
HBGS as a whole is a decent album, I wouldn’t call it bad but I
wouldn’t suggest you go out and buy it. That being said it has some tracks that
you really shouldn’t miss, particularly Weapon
of Choice. Fatboy’s style is very hit or miss; you will either love a track
or not. So if you liked Weapon of Choice
I recommend sifting through iTunes or YouTube and giving each track on HBGS
maybe 30 seconds of your time. If you like what you hear, buy it; if not,
forget about it. You should also check out the singles I listed at the top of
the album, they are incredible. Don’t buy all of Halfway Between the Gutters
and the Stars unless you’re a big Fatboy fanl; some of the songs are fantastic
while others are crap. Halfway between the gutters and the stars indeed.
I know, I know, I am once again extremely late on my post. I am
sure that you have all been on the edge of your seats waiting. However this
time I have a legitimate excuse, my sister graduated college this morning so I
have spent all week either in Dallas to celebrate or working my ass of so I
could take a half week off. Unfortunately I didn’t manage to get to work on
this article until now. I hope that you will forgive me.
Several weeks ago, I made a promise in my review of Beast Moans by Swan Lake. I said that I would eventually check out the main bands of the
artists that formed together to form the super-group. These bands are The New
Pornographers, Frog Eyes, Sunset Rubdown, Wolf Parade, and Destroyer. Seeing as
they are five bands that likely have a similar Canadian Indy Rock feel, I think
that both my readers and I would get tired of them if I reviewed them all in a
row. Thus I have decided to spread the reviews out over an extended period of
time in this column’s first sub-series, which I like to call the Canada
Collective. This week I bring you the first in the Canada Collective series,
Destroyer’s Rubies by Destroyer.
I don’t really know much about Destroyer; I had never heard of
them until I listened to Beast Moans. Even after listening to Destroyer’s
Rubies, I feel like I barely understand them. What I have gathered in my brief
research is that they are a pet project of Dan Bejar. Formed in 1995, they didn’t
really have a consistent lineup until Rubies, their seventh album, was released
in 2006. I find this interesting seeing as Beast Moans was also released that
year. I actually guessed, without looking, that they were made the same year
seconds after starting my first listen of Rubies; Bejar’s influence in Beast
Moans sticks out like a sore thumb.
From what I can tell from Rubies and Beast Moans, Bejar has a very
distinct style. He is exactly like Johnny Cash, Freddy Mercury, and Fred
Schneider (B-52’s singer) in that his voice immediately recognizable. Not only
is the sound of his voice very memorable, but his vocal styling is impossible
to miss. This is because he uses a lot of what I like to describe as a “melodic
rap”.
“Melodic rap” is hard to describe but easily recognized. It is not
rapping nor is it singing. It feels like he is just speaking the lyrics yet at
the same time he isn’t. He varies his pitch and tone in a very melodic way
without sounding like he is singing. The rhythm of his speech varies drastically,
suddenly speeding up and slowing down. The total effect feels like his words
are tumbling over themselves, like a wave crashing on shore. His control of
vocal rhythm rivals that of a rapper, hence the term “melodic rap”. It is a
really interesting and enjoyable style.
Enhancing the power of his vocal style is his lyrics. Everything
he says is deliberately poetic and cryptic. It is as though he is constantly
spurting out profound wisdom, though what he says makes little to no sense. The
album starts off with the lines “dueling cyclones jackknife. They got eyes for
your wife and the blood in her heart. Cast myself towards infinity, trust me I
had my reasons. Had a dress for every season, it was worth it”. It sounds
profound as hell coming out of his mouth but does it actually mean anything? I
kind of doubt it, though it is hard to shake the feeling that there is some
profound truth hidden deep in his words. He also is a huge fan of phrases like “your
precious American underground” or “your beautiful European Oils”. Is this a
commentary on society at large or a load of bull? Who knows…
These lyrics sound absolutely fantastic when heard through the lens
of Bejar’s “melodic rap”. Like a poet he is able to convey the beauty of the English
language. He shows us the wonderful sounds that are contained in each word. It
is this fact that makes me feel like most of his lyrics don’t mean anything
deep; he says what he says because it sounds good. On the other hand, they
could actually have a deep meaning in which case he might be one of the best
lyric-writers of all time.
The music that accompanies him is best described as Indy Rock. It
prominently features piano, drums, and both electric and acoustic guitar.
Sometimes it is fairly simple while other times it features some really complex
parts. It really fits Bejar’s vocals; the music and vocals complement each
other. The music is really enjoyable and
would make a great album by itself, but it is the vocals that really makes
Rubies shine.
Now onto the tracks. The album suffers a bit from weaker B-Side syndrome,
though not by much. Your Blood, European Oils, and Looter’s Follies are really strong songs that form the core of the
A-side. However, in my opinion, the real stars of the album are Painter in Your Blood and Rubies.Painter starts off slow, establishing a great chorus and melody,
before picking up the pace towards the end. That moment is one of my favorite
parts of the album. Rubies however is
the crown jewel of the album, hence the album title. It is a nine and a half minute
epic that features the best “melodic rap” on the album. The song just creates
this amazing energy and tone that just carries throughout the entire album. The
song sums of the album in general, much like Useful Chamber summed up the Dirty Projector’s Bitte Orca. Rubies
is featured below.
Earlier I claimed that Bejar’s influence in Beast Moans sticks out
like a sore thumb. This is because several songs on the album sound exactly
like a more dreamy, noisy, psychedelic Destroyer song. A Venue Called Rubella and Widow’s
Walk would sound exactly like a Destroyer song if they were cleaned up a
bit. The Freedom doesn’t even need to
be cleaned up; it could have been ripped straight from Rubies. I now affectionately
refer to Rubies as a non-drugged-up Beast Moans. This is not a bad thing
however, Beast Moans is one of my favorite albums of all time. Also, thanks to
the other members of Swan Lake, the rest of the album sounds almost nothing
like Rubies.
Destroyer’s most recent album, Kaputt, is supposedly really good. It received a
lot of critical acclaim; it was a finalist for the 2011 Polaris Music Prize but
lost to Arcade Fire’s Suburbs. I don’t know why I picked up Destroyer’s Rubies
and not Kaputt, though I am glad I did. Rubies is an excellent album that
deserves recognition. It was a wonderful introduction to what I am sure is a
wonderful band. I plan on following Destroyer and getting more of their albums
in the future (after the Canadian Collective is complete). I will start off by
seeing them live when they come to Philly next month, I am sure the show will
be most excellent.
It should be noted that my dad is unexpectedly, and hilariously, a
huge Lady Gaga fan. He finds her really intriguing and loves her kinda edgy pop
sound. So one day I decided to play him some of Strange Mercy by St. Vincent. I
thought that of all the music I listen to, St. Vincent would be the closest to
Lady Gaga. She is poppy and edgy yet very musically inclined (I will get into
that later). Halfway through the second song I played, Northern Lights, my dad asks me to turn it off. “I don’t like her,
she is just too weird” he explained.
I burst out laughing. How could St. Vincent, a mild mannered girl
born in Oklahoma possible be weirder then the “Mother Monster”? Gaga is known
for wearing completely bizarre outfits that make her look like an alien,
including the infamous meat dress. Compare this to St. Vincent who looks like a
petrified porcelain doll on the cover of Marry Me. I just didn’t get it, how
could he possibly be so wrong?
The more I thought about it however, the more I began to agree
with him. Not is the sense that St. Vincent was too weird for me, my other
column is testament to that fact. But I did agree with my dad’s implied opinion
that St. Vincent is weirder then Lady Gaga. Sure Lady Gaga might give off the
impression of being a space alien, but appearances aren’t everything. When it
comes down to it, Lady Gaga is not weird at all.
Gaga is all about the shock factor; the more she stands out the
more people take notice. The outfits, the stunts, and the shows only serve to
draw more attention. Depending on how jaded you are, you could explain Gaga’s
outlandish nature by she is leading a counter-culture movement, she just wants
to put on a good show, or that she makes more money if she draws attention to
herself. Either way, the motivations behind her actions are really quite
normal; people have been rebelling against popular culture since culture became
popular, all good artists try to entertain, and money is nice.
There really isn’t anything that weird about her music. I mean for
heaven’s sake it constantly tops the charts; weird music simply does not achieve
that level of success. Her shows are definitely shocking, but people have been
trying to out shock each other since before Madonna donned her infamous
cone-bra. Speaking of the other “Queen
of Pop”, I know the comparison has been made a million times but Lady Gaga is
the modern day Madonna. I am not saying that to belittle Gaga as an artist, but
to show that she really is not that weird. St. Vincent is a whole different
story.
I am a huge fan of St. Vincent. I have listened to each of her
albums countless times, watched all of her music videos, and seen her perform
live; I have a pretty good understanding of what she is like as an artist. Annie
Clark (St. Vincent) is mousy, thin, and beautiful. She is incredibly
soft-spoken and has a hilariously dry wit. She comes off as a nice, quiet girl
who keeps mostly to herself.
She also scares the living crap out of me; I am not kidding, she
terrifies me. Beneath her pleasant innocent exterior is a dark being that
defies description. She just gives off this vibe that makes me uncomfortable;
like she is a female praying mantis luring me in with her beauty just so she
can bed me and eat me. Her dry humor has a dark morbid tone to it. Don’t
believe me when I say she is dark? During the filming of the music video for Cruel, she was buried up to her eyes and
pseudo-water boarded. Both shots were the real thing; no special effects or
tricks were used. Heck, any of her music videos will give you this vibe. As
John repeatedly muttered during her show, “She’s a bad bad lady… a bad bad
lady”.
Everything about St. Vincent reflects this hidden nature. I like
to describe her music as having two voices, one is the beautiful and angelic
voice of Annie Clark and the other is the intense and dark sound of her guitar.
It is hard to tell from her album work, but anyone who has seen her live or
listened to her new record-day 7” KROKODIL/GROT know that she is an amazing
guitarist.
I would describe her live show like watching the two sides of her
struggling for control but that would be a mistake. Her sweet and dark sides
are in perfect harmony; there is no struggle. Sweet vocal lines take turns with
face-melting guitar solos. Songs start off soft and sweet and devolve into
noise at the climax before snapping back to coherency. Yet at the same time it
all flows together perfectly to an unsettling degree.
This unified dichotomy is really easy to see in her lyrics. In Cheerleader (above) she claims “I’ve have good
times with some bad guys, I’ve told whole lies with a half-smile” and states “I
don’t know what I deserve but for you I could work”. In Dilettante she asks “What is so pressing that you can’t undress me
anyway?” In Surgeon she alludes that
she is a prostitute (she is not really). Hearing these words said by her
angelic voice is disturbing. Her lyrics tell us that innocent appearance is
nothing more than a lie. It is enough to make anyone uncomfortable.
Despite how easy it is to pick up on Clark’s dual nature in her
lyrics, is also a core part of her music itself. Elegant baroque orchestrations
and harder rock sentiments combine to create a wonderful pop sound that is half
sweet, half bitter. What is so great about St. Vincent is how balanced her
music is, the baroque side keeps it light while the more intense side keeps it
from being overly elaborate and corny.
Having established what St. Vincent is usually like, I can now
talk about her debut album Marry Me. Like most freshmen albums, it is not like
the rest of her work. Many artists need time to find their sound and St.
Vincent is no exception. In Marry Me, Clark hasn’t quite found the brilliantly
smooth balance that I discussed above. Some songs are predominantly heavy while
others are much more ethereal. Neither of the two types is bad, they just
aren’t as brilliant as her later work. Speaking of which, I actually think that
St. Vincent didn’t really find her sound until her third and most recent album,
Strange Mercy. Actor is a great album, but it is still not quite there in terms
of balance. Her collective body of work is like making a glass of Kool-Aid; add
the sugar to the water and stir till completely mixed. Drink it too early and
it tastes off, drink it when its ready and it’s delicious (and gives you
diabetes).
That being said, St. Vincent wrote most of Marry Me when she was
18. Now I am going to go ahead and be ageist and say that it explains a lot. Most
18 year olds don’t have a great deal of life experience and don’t really know
who they are yet. Thus younger artists tend to write less complex and
interesting music. This is not always true, but Clark said this about Marry Me
herself.
The album however really show what St. Vincent is capable of. The
musicality and interesting instrumentation of her later work is there as is
several musical techniques that she is a fan of later. Her guitar work and
vocals are just as fantastic as her later work. Songs like Paris is Burning, and The Apocalypse
Song (below) feel like she stole them from her future self, they are really great
tracks. Marry Me is more on the soft
end of the spectrum but is fantastic nonetheless. Now, Now, and Jesus Saves, I
Spend are also good, though they are definitely a bit armature.
Marry Me also has some tracks that really surprised me, We Put a Pearl In the Ground is a really
pretty piano piece that is nothing like anything else she has ever done. It is
a really lovely song though it doesn’t really fit with the rest of her stull. The
tone in Human Racing is also
really different for St. Vincent.
The point I am trying to make is that Marry Me is a good
album, but not great. It has some really great stuff on it, but isn’t complete.
I highly recommend picking up a single or two off of it. The Apocalypse Song is definitely in my list of top St. Vincent
songs. However, I don’t recommend buying the whole album unless you’re a fan of
St. Vincent already. As I said, it is a freshman album and not her best work. If
you’re new to St. Vincent, please check out Strange Mercy; I would go so far as
to say it is one of the top 5 albums from last year.
Now back to my original argument, what is it about St. Vincent
that makes me claim she is weirder than Lady Gaga? The answer can be summed in
two core points, contrast and motive. Both artists create music that is off
kilter. However, one only has to look at Gaga to know that she is different,
whereas St. Vincent appears to be normal. The unexpectedness of St. Vincent’s weirdness
only magnifies it, whereas Gaga’s consistency dampens hers. Scary movies aren’t
as scary if you expect to be scared. The other reason St. Vincent is weirder is
her motivation to be weird. I already explained how Gaga is weird for very
normal reasons. St. Vincent is weird because that is just the way she is; she
has no motivation.
Be on the lookout for St. Vincent’s joint work with David Byrne of
the Talking heads coming out this fall.
For the better part of the last 12 years I have gone to/worked at
an overnight all boy summer camp in the Pocono Mountains. The camp, Camp Shohola, is a truly remarkable place and I cannot recommend it enough (in case
any of you are looking for a place to work over the summer/place to send your
kid). One of the vast number of things that makes Shohola stand out is that it
has something for everyone. There is every sport you can possibly imagine, all
sorts of boating classes, the most awesome set of arts and crafts classes, and
a whole computer camp. Where else could you play rugby, roll a kayak, learn to
code, smith a ring, and practice your fastball in one day? A better question is
“why am I writing such an obvious and shameless plug for the greatest camp
ever? “. This is a music blog not a
parental advice blog (or a school for ants)! The answer is simple; Shohola had
a class called Radio.
Shohola has a small FM radio station that broadcasts about a mile
around camp. Campers who signed up for the radio class were taught how to operate
the consul and put on their very own radio shows. The room is filled with old
CD’s and records. As a camper every other day I would head into the studio to
put on my favorite record, relax, and enjoy the tunes. There I learnt how to
cue a record and an eight-track (yeah they had old stuff). I loved it.
There was just one problem, unfortunately too few campers
appreciated classic rock and only a handful of CDs there came out after 2001.
There was thus a pile of five or six CDs that got played every class. As a
camper it wasn’t too bad, but as a counselor, I taught a couple hours of radio
a day. I grew tired of the songs that I liked on those albums and drew to
despise the ones that I didn’t like. I will never forget those albums, (What’s
the Story) Morning Glory? (Oasis), The Green album (Weezer), Hot Fuss
(Killers), The Fast and Furious soundtrack and Stadium Arcadium. This is where
my pathological hatred for the Red Hot Chili Peppers was born (if I have to
hear another song by them about California I will kill someone, probably Mark).
Regrettably the Killers were a casualty; I have had an aversion to them for the
eight years.
I thought that Mr.
Brightside and Somebody Told Me were
good songs before I was forced to listen to them against my will every day for
weeks on end. For a long time I couldn’t listen to anything by them without hearing
those two songs instead. In my mind, they made two hit songs that annoyed me so
they meant nothing to me. I decided to not like the Killers and avoid anything
they ever played.
Then as all my stories about things I used to hate go (except for
the Chili Peppers and Nevermind, I WILL NEVER LIKE EITHER), I soon found myself
jamming to them. Early last year I was jamming out to Pandora when a song I
never heard of before popped on. It was reflective, hopeful, poppy, and very catchy.
I had just recently started to come out of depression so the song really spoke
to me. So when I looked at what it was, I was completely flabbergasted. The
song was Human by the Killer
from the album Day and Age. I downloaded it and chocked it up as a guilty
pleasure, a song that I knew was by a terrible band yet I liked anyways. Once
my addiction to the song ended, I did my best to forget that I ever liked it.
So three weeks ago I was desperately looking for an album, I
had wanted to grab an album by Birds of Maya (the band that opened for Dr. Dog)
but couldn’t find them anywhere. So I asked Mark what albums he thought were
good. One of the albums he mentioned was Hot Fuss (it’s on his 42 on the 210
for our 210th). That statement reminded me of Human so I gave it another listen. In need of a new album and feeling
more open-minded I decided to take a gamble. It worked out with Beast Moans,
who is to say it wouldn’t work out this time? I got over years of prejudice and
bought Day and Age.
Day and Age made me slightly alter my opinion on the
Killers. I originally thought of them as a super poppy rock band that kinda
sucked to a super poppy rock band that rocks. They have a super poppy sound
that makes them really accessible, something that the inner hipster in me loathes.
Yet that attitude is really stupid so I ignored my inner hipster and realized
that the Killers are actually a great band. The Killers make music that mainstream
audiences can enjoy without falling into the trap of being fake, unoriginal,
and stale. They might not be my favorite band seeing as I like my music to be a
bit off-kilter (hence my other column), but they have my respect.
When I write my weekly reviews I usually try to highlight
the particularly good tracks. However, after writing an earlier draft of this
article I noticed that I had mentioned every song on the album. That is because
Day and Age is a pretty awesome collection of songs. Pretty much every song on
the album could hold its own as single and do well on the charts. Losing Touch kicks off the album with
bang that carries through the album. It sets the general tone of the album, a
sort of glam rock inspired heavily pop infused rock. The whole album has the
touching hopefully reflective attitude that touched me a year ago, with Human being its peak. Spaceman is by far the most poppy of the
songs with a chorus that I either remember from the radio back in 2008 or somehow
I managed to know it before I even heard it.
The whole album has a really epic feel. Everything in the
work, from the cover art to the title to the atmosphere of the music, screams
concept album. The start of Losing Touch
and end of Goodnight, Travel Well,
the respective start and end of the album, feel like the way a concept album
would start and end. The references to the album title in several songs confirm
that the Killers imagined Day and Age as a concept album. However, Day and Age
is not a concept album.
Under closer inspection, I realized that Day and Age doesn’t
centralize around a story or idea or anything in particular. The Wall chronicles
a musician’s growing insanity, Sgt. Peppers is a concert played by the Beatles’
alter egos, and In the Aeroplane Over the Sea is about “Ann Frank yada yada
hipster stuff yada yada” or something like that (I’m just kidding that album is
amazing, but the concept behind it is fairly diffuse). Nothing really ties Day
and Age together besides the general aesthetic. I can’t help listening to this
album and feeling it came so close to being truly excellent. It has all the building
blocks for a great concept album but just doesn’t put them together.
That being said, failing to be a concept album does not make
Day and Age bad, just not as great as it could be. What is left is a really
good collection of songs that have a similar aesthetic and thus fit really well
together. In this sense Day and Age greatly reminds me of Arcade Fire’s Neon
Bible. Even though every song on Day and Age feels like it could be a pop
single, the collection of them feels like an album. There is something to be
said about listening to them together.
All and all Day and Age is a good album, it has some of the
best songs that pop rock has to offer. If you like the genre you should really
give it a try. This album has changed my opinion on the Killers, I might even
give Hot Fuss another shot (seeing as it is supposedly a much better album). At
the very least, I really cannot wait for their next album set to come out later
this year.
EDIT:
Right before I posted this on the blog I checked Pitchfork and I regret to
inform you that the Killers saxophonist Tommy Marth recently committed suicide. His work
on Day and Age really helped create the general feel of the album. His sax
really made I Can’t Stay soar. I send
my regards to the Killers and Marth’s friends and family; this is a
heartbreaking tragedy.
Ah, opening acts. The most important, yet often overlooked part of
any show. You need an opening act to get the crowd going, to get them into the
jam before the show even starts. That way a band can kick off their set with
one of their hits and the crowd instantly goes nuts. The crowd has settled into
their appropriate locations, the excitable people have already pushed their way
to the front and the more laid-back head bobbers have settled to the back and
sides. The inner physicist cannot help but appreciate the natural excitement gradient
that the opening act creates. But opening acts aren't just important to the
main act, they are important to the whole music industry.
Opening acts are like feeder teams in sports. If a band does well
on their own level, be it local bar, small venue, battle of the bands, and so
on, then they get brought up temporarily to the big leagues to show their
stuff. Win over the crowd, win over fans, and increase chances that they will
headline a show. Fail to do so and they fall back to their level of relative
obscurity. Not every, but many acts started off opening for someone else. My
mom claims she saw Bruce Springsteen opening at a bat in Jersey when she was my
age. The Beatles used to play in between jazz group sets at the Cavern Club. In
short, opening acts are one of the most enjoyable and effective ways to
discover new music.
With this in mind, I pay close attention to the opening acts at every show I go
to. And just like a JV player getting a few seconds of fame in the varsity football
game, sometimes I am blown away and other times I am quite the opposite. I have
been to a lot of shows and seen a lot of openers and truthfully I don’t remember
most of them. Some I remember because I hated them so much, *cough* Serengeti *cough*
(Serengeti has a very love-hate
relationship on the blog, several members like him and I hate him enough to
neutralize the total sentiment).
Yet some of my favorite recent discoveries were opening acts at shows I went to,
The Marshmallow Ghosts, Buffalo Stance, Birds of Maya, and Friends just to name
a few. One act, Born Gold, really made an impression on me when they opened for
Grimes three weeks ago so I bought their album, Bodysongs, on the spot. Welcome
to the big leagues kids, you are being officially being judged by the same (completely
unknown/amateur) critique who has previously wrote on The Dirty Projectors,
Swan Lake, and the act you opened for, Grimes.
What caught my eye when I saw Born Gold play live was what usually catches my
eye, shiny flashing lights. One of their members had dressed up in a suit
covered in LEDs that flashed as he danced to the music. I was impressed because
as I said in my post on Visions, the Church was boiling that night. As cool as
it was, it just didn’t feel like enough. They lights were a bit sparse and repetitive.
Just before I lost interest they did some other things that brought me right
back. They walked around on stilts in the audience holding what looked like a snow
shovel filled with electronic equipment that lit up and I think distorted the
music. They dressed in robes and held
hand fans that lit up. Both were cool but were, like the suit, missing something.
I felt as though they had all these awesome ideas but just didn’t carry it to
their full potential, like a paper that gets a B+ because it came just shy of
being excellent. Pay attention to that analogy because it is going to extend
throughout this review.
The music at the concert was the same. It was so dark (so the suit would be visible)
that it was impossible to tell if they were creating the music or just dancing
to a recording. The music was enjoyable but I seriously thought that their
music was completely instrumental. When I got home and listened to Bodysongs, I
was surprised to hear very clear singing; I couldn’t believe they were the same
band. I know that this is First Unitarian Church (not exactly known for its
lighting or sound quality), but it still shouldn’t have been that bad. Another
aspect of the show was just slightly off.
Okay, now for the actual album. Bodysongs is like a five year old who ate a
whole bag of sugar. The word hyperactive doesn’t even begin to describe it. And
like said kid, its energy is very short lived; the album clocks in at 30
minutes exactly. Yet the length perfectly fits the style of music, I don’t think
I could handle another 10 minutes. The songs have very upbeat tempos, bubbly
synth sounds, and erratic noises. The vocals are slightly-electronically
altered, adding to the hyperactivity. Everything happens very fast and builds
into an electro-pop version of a wall of sound.
The drums are a fairly simple drum machine (note that I am talking about the
sound not the beat). While this might come off as lazy songwriting, but it
enables Born Gold to create some really interesting beats and effects. You see,
all of the chaos I mentioned earlier is mixed so that the melodies, drums, noises,
and vocals suddenly cut in and out, skip, or repeat. It is like a scratched CD
on steroids. This is by far my favorite part of their sound; it is where they truly
shine and get really creative. (The music video below is a good example of how awesome it can be). If Born Gold has used anything besides simple
synthetic drums, I am fairly certain my head would have exploded. The simple
drums compliment the intricate and high paced chaos of everything else. The
resulting sound is ungodly catchy.
The album has some pretty good tracks, Lawn
Knives being probably my favorite. I just really like the way they mess with
the singer’s voice during the chorus. Morning
Bath and Boring Horror are
especially catchy. The broken up, CD skip-y, nature of Wombstone is also pretty fantastic. Early
Birthday comes so close to being the perfect way to end the album. The
song just cuts out mid-line and has 20 seconds of silence before coming back in
a more subdued tone for a few seconds. If they had just left out that very last
part and left it as a sudden end with silence it would have fit the general
hyper-active sugar rush tone of the album (sugar rushes always end in a crash).
Yet despite Bodysong’s successes it comes up short; it comes just shy of what I
would call a good album. What is lacking is hard to put my finger on. It might
be shortness of the album. It might be that all of the songs feel way too
similar. Every time that I listen to the album I think that the first two
tracks, Lawn Knives and End of Days are the same song. Later in
the album I find myself questioning if I had just heard the song, every single
time I listen to the album. Born Gold certainly stands out from other bands,
but they don’t stand out from themselves.
Despite my hesitancy to call Bodysongs a good album, it shows serious
potential. It reminds me a lot of Man Man’s debut album The Man in the Blue
Turban with a Face (also known as the debut album of my favorite band ever). I
love that album, but it definitely inferior to their later work. It was a sign
of what was to come, what they could be once they worked out the kinks. Bodysongs
to me is one step shy of being something spectacular and I believe that Born
Gold will be able to nail it next time. I will be looking out for this band in
the future and I think you should too.
You may or may not believe this, but Eric and I are friends on Facebook (shocking I know). So when Eric wrote his post on Ratatat last week, he included the following status to go with the link: “RATATATis so fucking awesome, I don’t know why it took almost 200 posts to make one about them. Although this may be because Elliott doesn't do tracks of the moment.” Eric is right, I can assure you that if I did do track of the moments, Ratatat would get a lot of loving on the blog; I freaking love them. Something about the way their guitar and bass blend makes me think that their music is purely electronic and I think that is fantastic.
Last summer I went on a major Ratatat bender. I listened to their entire discography almost non-stop (which is only 4 albums Eric, get your facts straight). It still wasn’t enough, so I used Pandora.com to make myself a Ratatat playlist to find similar stuff. One day a track came on that stuck with me,Ghostrider by Rjd2. I listened to the song non-stop; I was of my Ratatat bender. It (somehow) acted as the transition to my Gorillaz bender (I really don’t know how I made that jump and yes I go on a lot of music benders). Though I never looked into Rjd2 more, he stuck in the back of my head. I knew that I would one day get the whole album.
Fast forward seven months and I am looking for an album to grab. Sometimes I just get stuck and have no idea what I want; nothing on my list of things to get looks appealing at that particular moment. I debated lying and writing on an album that I already knew and loved, claiming that I never heard it before. (I promise I won’t do that, it defeats the point of NA3WA). Then in my moment of indecision, my iPod’s shuffle landed on Ghostrider. My mind was made for me.
Deadringer took me a bit by surprise; given the way I discovered the album I
was expecting more of an electronic album. However, the album is very much hip
hop, specifically the DJ oriented variety (versus rapper oriented, though it
does contain a decent deal of rap). In fact, I first listened to Deadringer
with Eric in his apartment. When the album ended and I asked him what he
thought and he said that it was “pretty much the definition of early 2000’s DJ
hip hop”. Unfortunately I have little idea what I am saying when I talk about
hip hop/rap (in case you can’t tell) because my knowledge on the genre is
pretty much non-existent. So I must apologize in advanced for my limited
perspective. I will probably talk more about the more Dj/sample oriented tracks
seeing as that is what I am most interested. Now let’s get to the review.
At 67 minutes, Deadringer is long. It
has 18 songs that range from cool mixes of samples like The Horror to interesting raps like F.H.H, to more relaxed, trance-like stuff like The Proxy. Like all respectable hip-hop albums, the beats in Deadringer
are varied and fascinating. Each song is interesting in its own way. That being
said though, the length of the album serves to lessen the impact of each song’s
creativity rather than strengthen it. The diverse array of things going on
spread out over the course of an hour makes it hard to focus on the intricacies
at play, especially towards the end. Sure this might be because I have a low
attention span, but I think that is unlikely given that Shine on you Crazy Diamond (pts I-V) is one of my favorite songs. Length
aside, the album has some really great tracks. The Horror being the first of them (and the intro to the album).
The Horror is
awesome. It reminds me a great deal of the Avalanches with its layered samples
and main melody (I think it’s a synth…). The sampling is well mixed and really
creative and enjoyable. I looked up what songs are sampled and was very excited
to see that the vocals came from the Twilight Zone. When I first heard The Horror at Steve’s place (before I
listened to the whole album straight through with Eric), I instantly recognized
the opening sound but could not place where it was from. I kept pestering Steve
and Mark but both thought that it was an original sound. Well when I looked up
the sampled songs I was proven right. The opener is from The New Scooby-Doo Movies theme song (listen to the last 10 seconds), otherwise
known as the best way to start an album ever. Besides the excellent choices of
samples, the song is put together really well and is super catchy.
The same could be said about many other sample focused songs on the album.
Songs like Smoke & Mirrors and Good Times Roll, Pt. 2 are tight songs
that are really enjoyable to listen to. The aforementioned (posted above) Ghostwriter is a complete joy and is
probably the catchiest song I know that doesn’t have any lyrics. Shot in the Dark is not a particularly
musical song but the sampled vocals are really interesting (I thought it was
Fred Flintstone at first, unfortunately it isn’t). The songs that are rap
orientated in the first half, F.H.H and
Final Frontier, are pretty enjoyable.
This compliment is an impressive feat seeing that is coming from someone who
has only admitted to liking a couple of songs by Eminem and A Tribe Called
Quest (I am working on developing my rap side).
That being said, the album switches dramatically somewhere halfway through it.
The tight, catchy, active songs of the first half are mostly replaced by more
laid back stuff. These works are not bad songs, they just feel unnecessary and
different. The album is twice the length of a short LP; why not make it into
two separate works? Or how about split it into an LP and an EP? These could
have easily been done and I feel that both works would have been better off for
it. The result of the non-split is an album that is very easy to pick up and
start, but hard to listen to all the way through. I would say that you would be
better off picking the songs that you like individually, but at an immense
length of 18 songs, it is really worth it to pick up the whole album for a
couple extra bucks (assuming you use iTunes).
